If there are any wavering pro-life Democrats in this late hour that need to be persuaded about how bad the Senate bill is from a pro-life perspective, they should read two devastating memos that explain how the Senate bill would allow community health care centers to directly fund abortions. The first is by the pro-life secretariat at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, an organization that would support the health care bill if it didn't fund abortions with tax dollars. It's really worth taking the time to read the whole thing.

Some of the most important words in Stupak's amendment to the House bill--which are missing from the Nelson amendment to the Senate bill--are

(You can find the text of Stupak's amendment here and Nelson's amendment here.)

So the $11 billion for community health centers could be used to directly pay for abortions. As the USCCB memo points out (1) that the courts have ruled that unless prohibited by statute, public health programs must fund abortions and (2) the funding for the community health centers falls outside of the health and human services bill, and therefore is not subject to the Hyde amendment's abortion-funding ban

The editors of Commonweal claim :

since such money will in any case be channeled through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where the Hyde Amendment obtains, there is no good reason to suppose that it will be exempt from the amendment’s constraints

Recently the editors of Commonweal and the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus have disputed that these health centers could fund abortions under Obamacare.

"It’s also worth mentioning that none of the existing health centers, which provide care to one in eight children born in the United States, has ever offered abortion services."

If there's no funding for abortion, why does the Nelson amendment have a provision to opt out of funding abortion coverage?

What’s Wrong With the Senate Health-Care Bill on Abortion: A response to Professor Jost

Bart Stupak's amendment to the House bill

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-bears-false-witness-saying-abortion-coverage-health-bill-fabrication

So far, most of the arguments about taxpayer-funding of abortion have focused on

bookkeeping scheme. Barbara Boxer once agreed:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031603321.html

One relatively new argument against the Senate bill is that the ban on government funding of abortion does not explicitly include community health centers, which would receive billions more in funding. Except: These centers already receive federal funds. They don't perform abortions. And existing regulations prohibit them from performing abortions with federal funds. If the absence of an explicit legislative ban is a problem, why wasn't it raised when, say, the stimulus bill appropriated an additional $2 billion for community health centers?

but the thing about bookkeeping schemes is they're meant to be confusing. I've made the case that this is a

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-bears-false-witness-saying-abortion-coverage-health-bill-fabrication

In this late hour of the debate over the health care bill, Obamacare supporters are pointing to endorsements of the bill by groups like the Catholic Health Association to prove that the bill doesn't provide taxpayer-funding of abortions. The CHA's argument is that the

They're simply wrong: the very first part of Nelson's amendment is a state opt-out provision.

If we were talking about a fund

pro-lifers say that this is nothing more than a bookkeeping scheme, and Barbara Boxer once acknowledged as much.

But what

Yglesias then makes an obtuse point:

Since the dispute here is actually about the details of health care financing rather than theology, it seems to me that the Catholic Health Association’s view should be considered much more authoritative than the Bishops.

Actually: the text of the bill is what's authoritative in this dispute. The United States Council of Catholic Bishops cites the Senate bill chapter and verse to make its case; curiously the Catholic Health Association does not do the same.

The Senate bill's Nelson amendment begins:

"STATE OPT-OUT OF ABORTION COVERAGE.-- '(1) IN GENERAL.--A State may elect to prohibit abortion coverage in qualified health plans offered through an Exchange in such State if such State enacts a law to provide for such prohibition."

The Senate bill's Nelson amendment begins:

"STATE OPT-OUT OF ABORTION COVERAGE.-- '(1) IN GENERAL.--A State may elect to prohibit abortion coverage in qualified health plans offered through an Exchange in such State if such State enacts a law to provide for such prohibition."

bookkeeping scheme. ...

it's complicated, focus on Community Health Centers would allow direct. ...

both Marcus and Commonweal assert that no CHCs currently provide abortions. They do not provide a source for this claim. CHCs could very well be providing abortions right now (there's a http://www.reproductiveaccess.org/getting_started/faq.htm), but it is incredibly naive to believe that abortion doctors wouldn't try to secure any of the $11 billion being funnelled. ...

Actually: the text of the bill is what's authoritative in this dispute. The United States Council of Catholic Bishops cites the Senate bill chapter and verse to make its case; curiously the Catholic Health Association and NETWORK do not do the same.

http://www.reproductiveaccess.org/getting_started/faq.htm

Indeed, the Reproductive Health Access Project and the Abortion Access Project have produced an �administrative billing guide� to help CHCs integrate abortion into their practices within the confines of existing federal and state restrictions. See �Administrative Billing Guide for Medical Abortion at Facilities that Receive Title X, Section 330, and other Federal Funding,� at http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/ReproductiveHealthAccessProjectAdminBillingGuide.pdf

So let's take a look at what the legislation actually says. You can find the Stupak amendment attached to the House bill here and the Nelson amendment attached to the Senate bill here.

Got that? States may pass laws to "prohibit abortion coverage" in plans offered in the federally subsidized exchanges. That means the default position is for states to offer abortion coverage in the exchanges. If there is no abortion coverage in the Senate plan, then what exactly are the states allowed to opt out of?

  1. opt-out
  2. CHCs ...
  3. segregation of funding

If we were talking about purchasing handguns instead of elective abortions through a federal program, I'm sure Democrats would see eye to eye with Republicans.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/12/23/v-print/81204/california-senators-back-health.html

and, well, if I must defer to authority, let's get Barbara Boxer's take:

Boxer said [the Nelson amendment is] only an "accounting procedure" that will do nothing to restrict coverage.

All federal insurance plans by employees. ...

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjJhZjc1Yzk0YTU4M2UyZjcyNDk0ODcwYWViZWE1NGQ=ying on assertions rather than facts.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/17/stupak-nuns/